


Matrix Refugee

by matrixrefugee



Category: The Matrix (1999 2003 2003)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-28
Updated: 2010-09-28
Packaged: 2017-10-12 06:46:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/122038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matrixrefugee/pseuds/matrixrefugee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A poem in three parts about a nameless Red Pill</p>
            </blockquote>





	Matrix Refugee

**Author's Note:**

> Matrix Refugee

+J.M.J.+

Matrix Refugee

By "Matrix Refugee" a.k.a., R.C.H. Mulhare

Disclaimer:  
I do not "own" The Matrix, its imagery and concepts or anything related to it.  
This is the "legal property" of the Wachowski Brothers, Village Roadshow  
Pictures, and Warner Brothers.

Author's note:  
I published this poem elsewhere on the 'Net, but this is the improved, expanded  
version.

Part I: The Escape

Have you ever parsed "angst" in three tenses?  
Have you ever felt the fabric of the universe  
Tear in two from top to bottom around you  
Showing, revealing nothing behind it  
Except the bare boards, the scorched sky?  
Have you ever clung to another's hand  
Only to feel the flesh peel away from the bones?  
Have you ever looked into your beloved's eyes  
And seen only black sockets look into your eyes,  
A joyless smile grin back?  
Have you felt more alive while dreaming?  
And felt dead when you were awake?  
Have you taken the truth into your flesh?  
Have you opened your eyes to bleeding darkness?  
Have you wrenched the cables free  
And fallen from this system  
That binds us to a lie  
And blocks the truth from our minds?  
Or am I alone in the desert of the real,  
Floating, free falling through dead air  
Cables half-dangling, half-tangled  
Medusa-wise about my stark body?

Part II: The Renewal

Strong hands pluck me from the deep,  
From the swirling black waters,  
From the cascading green code,  
From the lies I mistook for reality.  
Gentle hands but firm  
Reach down and lift me up,  
Carrying me out of my inanities,  
Turning my mole-blind eyes to the light.  
Hands caress me, work over my wasted carcass,  
Massage limbs I have never used,  
Touch a soul I never knew I had.  
Gentle fingers but strong  
Remove from my flesh  
The plugs that bound it to oblivion.  
Voices gentle but strong  
Speak to me words of wisdom and truth  
Words I have never heard.  
Time heals all wounds  
Truth heals the scabs, the stripes  
Deception left behind,  
Leaving only metal scabs,  
The scars from my first battle  
With myself.

Part III: The Knowledge

From distracted slumbers I awaken  
Finding myself between cold metal walls.  
Fear hovers over my consciousness  
Till I recall what has gone past  
And then I can strive upward.  
Knowledge is power, my new comrades tell me.  
All the knowledge I thought I possessed  
Was only so much code,  
Electric blips on my brain's display.  
The life I knew was but a lie,  
A hood pulled over this wounded falcon's head.  
Now I must learn the ways of a new world,  
A new life,  
A life where machines are the servants  
And man their master.  
In that world, I could not know my self  
My true self  
From the self the machines gave me.  
Now I must relearn all I knew,  
To stand erect, to breathe-  
To think,  
To live in realization  
That comfort does not equate with right,  
That truth's algorithm  
Does not add up to a pleasant total.  
Now to live as a human should live  
I must lay aside all inhibition and embrace  
The darkness that is light,  
The pain that is delight,  
Or else submit my spirit  
To a second death far more damning  
Than the death of my flesh.  



End file.
